Is Boston Market more healthful than other fast food chains?

I was away from home at dinnertime today, and although I'm not usually a fan of chain restaurants, I gave in to a craving for Boston Market. I don't think of Boston Market's food as healthful, but I always figured it was a bit less unhealthful than "traditional" fast food like McDonalds or KFC. After finishing a fatty, salty meal, though, I was wondering whether that's true. I decided to look up the nutrition facts for what I had just eaten.

Boston Market provides access to an online nutrition calculator, which is actually pretty slick. I entered my entrée (Rotisserie Chicken - Three Piece Dark, which automatically added cornbread to my meal and sides (Garlic Dill New Potatoes and Garlicky Lemon Spinach). The calculator generated this nutrition facts report:


The calorie count was actually less than I expected. I can certainly handle 760 calories at dinnertime, unless I've had an unusually large breakfast and lunch.

The fat and saturated fat numbers are pretty high, but (I'm embarrassed to say) no higher than some of the dinners I cook at home. The cholesterol, at 108% of daily value, is a bit alarming. The chicken accounts for 290mg of the cholesterol, about double what USDA's Food-A-Pedia estimates for a similar quantity of roasted dark-meat chicken.

It's no surprise that the meal included nearly a day's worth of sodium. The 15 grams of sugar did come as a surprise. The only thing that tasted slightly sweet was the cornbread, which turns out to contribute 13 of those 15 grams.

On the positive side, the nutrition facts significant amounts of vitamins and minerals, as well as 6 grams of fiber. These nutrients mostly came from the two side dishes. However, I'm skeptical whether the stated amounts of these nutrients really survived processing and cooking. Also, I noticed vitamin A palmitate in the ingredient list, so not all of the vitamin A is from the actual vegetables.

Speaking of the ingredients, I was going to count how many there are, but I actually found it too difficult. Many of them have lists of sub-ingredients, some of which overlap. Suffice it to say there were more than 20 ingredients in my meal, and they included such delights as modified cornstarch and mono and diglycerides. It's never a good sign when Google's spell-checker doesn't believe something you ate is a word.

One definite benefit of this dinner: between the Garlic Dill New Potatoes and the Garlicky Lemon Spinach, I won't have to worry about vampires tonight!